One of the surest indications that the state of ancient society in the Mississippi valley was essentially rude and primitive is found in the fact that few prehistoric inscriptions of archælogical value, or picture writings of interest, have been discovered within this widely extended area. None have been found approaching the higher grades of hieroglyphic writings, such as marked the civilization of the Mayas of Central America, or even equaling the ruder Runic characters or alphabet of the ancient Northmen.
     The North American Indians excelled all other barbarous tribes in the efficient and general use of sign language, and in expressing conceits, recording events, and conveying information by rude markings or inscriptions; yet the antiquarian will search in vain among the pictographs and inscriptions that illustrate the large volumes of Squier and Davis, Catlin, Schoolcraft, or the more recent valuable publications of the Bureau of Ethnology [Note 1] for traces of an ancient native written language, or decipherable symbol language. The large number of pictographs and inscriptions illustrated are rarely above the grade of the rude archaic animal sketches and markings, or rock carvings, of the historic tribes, and are of comparatively little ethnic value. A few inscriptions or pictures of a higher type have been discovered. The Cincinnati tablet [Note 2], the figures on copper from the Etowah mound in Georgia, and several of the engraved shell figures and pictures from the mounds of Tennessee, Georgia, and Missouri, are objects of much archæological interest, and must be excepted from the mass of ruder prehistoric pictographs. Although these expressions of art are essentially Indian and primitive, they point to a state of society, or of local or individual development, in certain ancient centers of population, a degree above the general culture status of the historic tribes. This proof is positive, and must be accepted. These evidences of ancient culture could not all have been borrowed or exotic. They do not indicate a state of society beyond the reach of the ancestors of the historic tribes in the natural progress of development, nor are they above the general state of art and culture of progressive tribes like some of the advanced pueblo villagers. They merely mark the highest points or stages of culture probably reached in the slow processes of evolution, and suggest that there has been a slight decadence since the dawn of history, or the best prehistoric period, probably resulting from wars, migrations, or other natural causes. Illustrations of some of these interesting objects will be found in subsequent chapters. A few ancient carvings or inscriptions upon stone of considerable interest have in recent years been found in Tennessee.
 

     The carefully engraved stone, both sides of which are fairly well illustrated in Fig. 15, was found some years ago near Petersburg, in Lincoln county, Middle Tennessee, and is now in the collection of the Tennessee Historical Society. The stone is of dark, hard, and compact slate. It is a little larger than the illustration, and bears such marks of age and use that there can be no question as to its genuineness [Note 3]. The ornamentation engraved upon it is of the familiar Greek key or classic fret pattern, frequently found among Mexican antiquities. The same pattern, in more regular forms, ornaments the front of the ancient "Governor's House," at Uxmal, in Central America. More exact examples of the ornamentation upon this stone are, however, to be found upon the ancient pottery from the Moqui pueblos in the province of Tusayan, Arizona.

The handsome old Moqui vase (Fig. 16) is ornamented in patterns almost duplicating the lines engraved upon this stone. It may be found in the collection of the National Museum, with many other articles of pottery of similar ornamentation from the same province [Note 4].
    

A fine specimen of a higher type of this form of ornamentation is presented in Fig. 17. It was taken from a fragment of very ancient pottery found in Mexico, and shows the more advanced culture of the Aztecs or Toltecs [Note 5]. This rare little engraved "banner stone" was doubtless long worn or carried as an ornament, token, or amulet, or, perhaps, was used for some ceremonial purpose. It may have been a long-treasured keepsake of the Fatherland in the Far West, as it was probably an importation, centuries ago, from the Moqui pueblo section. No similar tracery or ornamentation has been discovered among the antiquities of Tennessee, or of the Mississippi valley, so far as we can learn. It establishes with considerable certainty the existence of intercourse between the ancient inhabitants of Middle Tennessee and the tribes of the pueblos, evidently village Indians of the same general class.
 

An inscribed stone of an interesting character was recently found by George Wood, a colored man, while "digging for pots" in the large aboriginal cemetery on the Noel farm, near Nashville. The stone is a sandstone, yellowish-gray in color, and of rather-coarse grain. It is about two inches in diameter, and nearly an inch thick. On the reverse side, it is hollowed out like a "cup stone." An engraving of it, representing both sides, is shown in Fig. 18.
     The inscription, well and deeply cut into the hard stone, is evidently ideographic, and a painstaking attempt at hieroglyphic or sign writing. It was certainly intended to have some special significance, or to record some specific idea, as the characters are not careless incisions or markings. It may have represented some contract, or totem, or memorial, or some money idea, or value.
     The characters happen to be somewhat similar to some of the letters of the old Phoenician alphabet, and to the Runic inscriptions of the ancient Scandinavians. Dr. M. W. Dickinson, in his valuable work upon American Numismatics, gives a number of illustrations of small, inscribed disks of stone, clay, coal, and galena, in form somewhat like this inscribed stone, objects discovered by him in exploring the mounds of the lower Mississippi valley, and which he designates as "aboriginal money" of the mound building tribes [Note 7]. A few small disks of the same kind have been found in Tennessee. Dr. Dickinson was excellent authority upon this general subject, but we do not find it considered elsewhere, and we can not be certain that these little "discoidals" were used as money.
     The prehistoric tribes probably had no medium of exchange corresponding with our modern idea of money or currency. Even the Aztecs of ancient Mexico had no regular metallic currency in general use. Barter and interchange of commodities constituted their principal method of exchange. The nearest approach to a system of currency among the historic tribes, was the use of wampum or shell money, a use doubtless originally derived from the value of shells or shell beads as ornaments. The unique stone illustrated, however, is of interest as indicating an effort at sign writing much above the ordinary types of Indian inscriptions.
     Some of the North American Indians, so expert in conveying their ideas by signs and sign writing, were evidently making slow but certain progress toward a written alphabet.
     There has also been discovered, in Sumner county, Tennessee, near the stone graves and mounds of Castalian Springs, a valuable pictograph, the ancient engraved stone illustrated in Plate II, which we have taken the liberty to entitle A Group of Tennessee Mound Builders.

     This engraved stone, the property of the Tennessee Historical Society, is a flat, irregular slab of hard limestone, about nineteen inches long, and fifteen inches wide. It bears every evidence of very great age. A plate engraved directly from a photograph of it would have been made for this publication, but the surface of the stone was uneven, and it was found impossible to get a strong photograph of the whole picture for a single plate. The stone was found on Rocky creek, in Sumner county, and was presented, with other relics, to the Tennessee Historical Society about twelve years ago. The society, at that time, not having sufficient room to exhibit its collections, the stone was packed away until 1886, when it was placed on exhibition at the new "Historical Rooms," in the Watkins Institute, in Nashville. No archaeologist, upon examining it, will doubt that this interesting pictograph in stone is a genuine antique.
     It is evidently an ideograph of significance, graven with a steady and skillful hand, for a specific purpose, and probably records or commemorates some important treaty or public or tribal event. It seems to represent a time of general congratulations, perhaps some aboriginal Fourth of July! Indian chiefs, fully equipped with the insignia of office, are arrayed in fine apparel. Two leading characters are vigorously shaking hands in a confirmatory way. The banner or shield, ornamented with the double serpent emblem and other symbols, is, doubtless, an important feature of the occasion. Among the historic Indians, no treaty was made without the presence or presentation of the belt of wampum. This, the well-dressed female of the group appears to grasp in her hand, perhaps as a pledge of the contract. The dressing of the hair, the remarkable scalloped skirts, the implements used, the waist-bands, the wristlets, the garters, the Indian leggins and moccasins, the necklace and breast-plates, the two banners, the serpent emblem, the tattoo stripes, the ancient pipe—all invest this pictograph with unusual interest.
     Mr. Conant, in his Footprints of Vanished Races, published in 1879 (page 94), referring to the mound builders of South-east Missouri, makes the following statement: "In some of their human effigies do we find the manner of arranging their hair distinctly delineated, and we may yet discover those which shall furnish us with correct representations of their mode of dress. Indeed, I have seen one vessel with figures of men rudely painted in outline upon its sides, who were clad in flowing garments gathered by a belt around the waist and reaching to the knees." (The italics are used to call attention to the latter part of the statement.)
     Mr. Conant's prediction is fully realized in this pictograph. Here are portrayed, evidently with considerable correctness, the dresses and figures of leading personages of the Stone Grave race, the mound builders of Tennessee, as they appeared upon some important occasion. Unfortunately, the faces of two of the four upper figures, the fanciful hair or head ornaments, the lower shield and some other details are partly lost by the disintegration of the stone, owing to its great age. Only faint outlines can now be seen. It would probably have been wiser to have made no attempt to illustrate these portions of the pictograph. The implements or objects in the hands of the separate figure below have also become somewhat obscure, but the pictograph, as it now appears, has been copied from the original stone, with truthful expression and exactness of details. It was well and deeply graven, probably with some implement of quartz or flint upon the softer limestone surface. The aboriginal art was even slightly superior to the art of the copyist, as represented in the illustration presented. Some slight analogies or resemblances to the figures in this pictograph are found in other prehistoric picture writings from the mounds.